This is a reprint of 2 devotionals, "The New Christian Year" (1941) and "The Passion of Christ: Being the Gospel Narrative of the Passion with Short Passages Taken from the Saints and Doctors of the Church" (1939), both chosen by Charles Williams, an English poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and teacher. Charles Walter Stansby Williams was most often associated with the Inklings (a group of christian writers including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), Williams was also cited as a major influence on W.H. Auden's conversion to christianity and he was a peer and friend of T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers and Evelyn Underhill. These devotionals collect writings from throughout the history of christian thought. His choices were novel at the time, referencing Kierkegaard just as his translations were appearing in english print (Williams helped edit the first translations in England) and drawing upon the little known sermons of the poet John Donne.
For each day of the Church year (starting in Advent), quotes will be posted as they appeared in the 1941 edition of "The New Christian Year". They are categorized by the source on the left, so that readers can read more from each author. I will also add links to websites about each source.
During lent the "The New Christian Year" will be supplemented by quotes from "The Passion of the Christ". This text has passages from the Gospel accounts of the passion supplemented by quotes from the "Saints and Doctors of the Church".

God impeacheth not Caesar, nor God's due Caesar's right . . . In the high and heavenly work of the preservation of all our lives, persons, estates, and goods, in safety, peace, and quietness, in this his so great and divine benefit, he hath associated Caesar to himself.

The perfection of our knowledge is Christ; the perfection of our knowledge in, or touching Christ, is the knowledge of Christ's piercing. This is the chief sight; nay, in this sight are all sights; so that know this, and know all.

He was pieced with love no less than with grief, and it was that wound of Love which made him so constantly to endure all the other. . . Christ pierced on the cross is liber charitatis, "the very book of love" laid open before us.

The perfection of our knowledge is Christ; the perfection of our knowledge in, or touching Christ, is the knowledge of Christ's piercing. This is the chief sight; nay, in this sight are all sights; so that know this, and know all.

No manner of violence offered him in body, no man touching him or being near him; in a cold night, for they were fain to have a fire within doors, lying abroad in the air and upon the cold earth, to be all of a sweat, and that sweat to be blood; and not as they call it diaphoreticus, "a thin faint sweat," but grumosus, "of great drops"; and those so many, so plenteous, as they went through his apparel and all . . . never the like sweat certainly, and therefore never the like sorrow.

God therefore showed himself in passion that he might move us, and in that passion whereto he would move us; thus complaineth God that we might thus infer and say, and doth God thus complain? Why, it toucheth not God, it toucheth me; 'He needeth not our repentance, and our unrighteousness hurteth him not.' It is I that shall win or lose by it, even the best thing I have to lose, my soul; He is in no danger, it is I, the hazard of whose eternal weal or woe lieth upon it. And yet doth God shew himself sorry for me, and shall not I be sorry for myself? Doth God thus complain of my sin, and shall not I be moved to do as much for mine own sin?

What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. Will duty? Here is a person never the like. Will fear? Here is wrath never the like. Will remorse? Here are sins never the like. Will kindness? Here is love never the like. Will bounty? Here are benefits never the like. Will all these? Here they be all, all in the highest degree.

He was pierced with love no less than with grief, and it was that wound of love which made him so constantly to endure all the other. Which love we may read in the palms of his hands, as the Fathers express it out of Isaiah (xlix. 16); for 'in the palms of his hands he hath graven us' that he might not forget us. . . . For Christ pierced on the cross is liber charitatis, 'the very book of love' laid open before us.

God impeacheth not Caesar, nor God's due Caesar's right. . . . In the high and heavenly work of the preservation of all our lives, persons, estates, and goods, in safety, peace, and quietness, in this his so great and divine benefit, he hath associated Caesar to himself.